TeachersFirst's Hanukkah Resources

Whether you are learning about the "Festival of Lights" or how to make a Dreidel, check out these resources to learn about Hanukkah. There are activities and resources for all grade levels. Be sure to check out our resources for all December holiday celebrations on our TeachersFirst Classroom Planning Calendar.

Torah Tots teaches young children all about Jewish traditions and holidays through games, coloring pages, and music. Select holidays to take an adventure based on holidays such as Chanukah, Yom Kippur, Passover, or Rosh Hashanah. Other sections teach about the Jewish Calendar, Jewish history, and offer traditional Jewish music.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Keep this site in mind as an easy place to find lists of the Jewish months, Jewish symbols, information about Judaism, and plenty of information about Jewish holidays. Classes studying world cultures, the Hebrew language, and/or international holidays can learn from this site and also use it as a model to create similar games and projects for other cultures and languages. Select music for students to listen to while completing coloring pages and puzzles. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here, to compare and contrast traditional Christmas activities with Hanukkah events.

In the Classroom

Need to find quick activities for a special holiday in your class? Find ready-made activities to use during center time, class celebrations, or special reward time on your interactive whiteboard. After school programs can easily use activities for all different interests during holiday times.

In the Classroom

Add this site to your activities to use for Hanukkah. Introduce simple games on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Bookmark this site on your classroom computers to use during center time. Use as an incentive to promote positive behavior. Share this link on your class website for families to access at home.

This site offers stories, activities, "entertaining" songs, and more to teach students about Hanukkah and Passover. The "Activities" portion of the site contains many different crafts such as Design Your Own Dreidel, coloring pages, and origami. The "About Hanukkah" section gives a brief history of the holiday and describes how it is commonly celebrated today. There is also a large recipe section offering recipes for many different types of latkes and candle cupcakes. The educators section includes questions to use with the stories on the site. Some of the videos (for example Hanukat Montana Rocks Out the Show, don't offer much educationally and are more for pure entertainment.) .

In the Classroom

Use this site to provide background information to students on the history and traditions of Hanukkah. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here) to create a visual comparison of Hanukkah celebrations and students' traditional holiday celebrations.

This hotlist of Chanukah/Hanukkah sites has everything you might want to learn about the holiday, Jewish culture, and traditions. In addition to sites in English, there are sites in Hebrew, Russian, and other languages, all about the holiday. You can even find sources for Chanukah/Hanukkah clip art. Although TeachersFirst does not normally review "hotlists," this collection is comprehensive and updated regularly as a "labor of love."

In the Classroom

Make this treasury a starting point for multicultural study of holidays around the world or for a more in depth study of Jewish traditions. Assign student groups to learn about specific aspects of the holiday and share their findings on a class holiday guide wiki. ith younger students, share specific links on a projector or interactive whiteboard and give students a chance to share and compare their own holiday traditions with the ones mentioned. You could even use some of these resources in upper elementary or middle school as reading comprehension exercises during the holiday season: write a summary or formulate a statement of a text-based site's main idea.

A great resource for anything you ever wanted to know about Kwanzaa. Delves into Kwanzaa history in detail and describes the meaning of its symbols. There are links to wallpaper, greetings (e-cards), music, recipes, books, symbols, details about the Seven Days, history, and the Feast.

In the Classroom

Use this source to teach your students about Kwanzaa. Divide your class into several groups. Have each group research one of the links at this site and present their findings to the class using a bookmarking tool such as Wakelet, reviewed here. With Wakelet students can make their wakes distinctive by adding a cover image or symbol for their Kwanzaa topic, a background, and choose the layout. If your class is learning about Kwanzaa along with Chanukah instruct them compare these holidays using the Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here, if the comparison includes Christmas use the Interactive Three Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here. Another project idea would be to challenge students to create an interactive, multimedia infographic using Visme, reviewed here.

This site provides a detailed lesson plan linked to national standards. Follow this simple set of instructions for making dreidels - traditional Hanukkah toys. Download the dreidel pattern, assemble as directed, and organize students into small groups for the dreidel game (rules included). Students learn about the history of the dreidel, Hanukkah crafts and recipes and more! Flash is required for some of the interactive activities.

In the Classroom

Take advantage of the free lesson plan hosted on this site! This would be a useful resource for a World History class studying various religions or for a more inclusive holiday celebration come winter break!

Here is a site with a full set of rules for playing the popular Hanukkah game.

In the Classroom

Use the directions to teach students how to play dreidel during a lesson or unit on Judaism. Although it's not something they absolutely need to know - it would be a fun break for students, and may give some more cultural awareness that a textbook would not be able to.

We suspect that this very nice introduction to Hanukkah was written for non-practicing Jews. As a result, it works for both Jews and non-Jews. You'll find information on the histoy of Hanukkah, descriptions and instructions for Hanukkah observances, and other information about Judaism.

In the Classroom

Share this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector around the holiday season. Allow students to peruse the site on their own to gain a better understanding of the holiday. In addition to Christmas activities, recreate some of the Hanukkah activities in the preceding days before winter break. Alternatively, create small groups and have each group research a different aspect of Chanukah and present their findings to the class. Use a bookmarking tool such as Wakelet, reviewed here. With Wakelet students can make their wakes distinctive by adding a cover image or symbol for their Chanukah topic, a background, and choose the layout. As a culminating activity have each student compare Chanukah and Christmas using the Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here, if your class is also learning about Kwanza, use the Interactive Three Circle Venn Diagram, reviewed here.